I work in biotech and of my projects has probably 200 engineers and scientists working on interdependent tasks, and 10 years of accumulated knowledge. Requirement and knowledge management can only go so far, so networking becomes critical to find subject matter experts, or someone can point you to one when you need answers.
I think there is some threshold of work scale or interdependence where remote work breaks down. That is to say, any productivity benefits from remote work scale linearly and communication challenges scale exponentially. This of course assumes that there is some communication friction for remote relative to in person.
Anyone who claims that everything can be work from home or everything must be in office is missing the big picture.
But there is nuance to everything and varying levels of complexity, however people maintain kernels such as linux or operating systems such as freebsd or other massively complex and successful open or commercial products without ever meeting face to face.
Many years ago when i heard people talking about remote i simply couldnt get my head around it. I wanted buts in the seats and people in front of whiteboards. I just couldnt comprehend how entire companies operate without even having an office and they weren’t mom and pop size. Until it clicked. If a company can have offices spread across continents, let alone remote customers, then it surely can hire remote employees.
I would take everything you listed above as signs that things need to improve. Remote is not the issue here.
Also if you dump me in a room with 20 people just to get your code up an running i might think i am at a highschool not a proper workplace. Similarly if i need to jump through hoops to get things done then thats not a desirable place to work at regardless of pay or remote work.